by Brian Lumley
“Listen to me, all of you,” said Harry, before they could start again. “So you’ve all suffered injustices, eh? Well, maybe you have, but none so great as those you’ve worked. How many men did you kill with your Evil Eye, Max, stopping them dead in their tracks and crumpling their hearts like paper? And were they all bad men? Did they deserve to die? As horribly as that? No, for one at least was my friend, as good a man as you could ever wish to meet.”
The head of your British E-Branch? Batu was quick off the mark. But Dragosani ordered me to kill him!
It was our mission! Dragosani railed. Don’t play the innocent here, Mongol. You’d killed others before him.
He also ordered Ladislau Giresci killed, said Batu. One of his own countrymen, and entirely innocent! Ah, but Giresci knew Dragosani’s secret—that he was a vampire!
He was a danger to … to the State! Dragosani blustered. I worked only for Mother Russia, and—
“You worked only for yourself!” Harry stopped him. “The truth is, you desired to be a power in the land. No, in the whole world! Lie if you must, Dragosani, for it’s a trait of vampires, after all, but not to yourself. I’ve spoken to Gregor Borowitz, remember? And did he too die for Mother Russia? The head of your own E-branch?”
There you have it, Dragosani, said Thibor, his voice a dark chuckle. Caught on your own barbs!
“Don’t crow, Thibor,” Harry’s voice was lower still. “You were as bad and probably worse than both of them.”
I? Why, I have--or I had—lain here in the earth for five hundred years! What harm can a poor thing in the ground do, alone with the worms in the cold hard earth?
“And what of the five hundred years before that?” said Harry. “You know as well as I that Wallachia trembled to your tread for centuries! The earth itself is soaked black with the blood you spilled. And don’t lay it all at Faethor Ferenczy’s feet. He’s not entirely to blame. He knew what you were, else he wouldn’t have chosen you …”
And is that why you’ve come? Thibor asked after a moment. To harangue and accuse and denounce?
“No, I came to learn,” said Harry. “Now look, I can’t lie as well as you do. I was never much of a liar at the best of times. So I’m sure you’d see through me if I tried any sort of subterfuge. That’s why I’ll come straight out with it …”
Well then? said Dragosani. Out with it, if you will.
Harry ignored him, was silent for a few seconds. “Thibor,” he said at last, “a moment ago you asked what harm you’d done, buried here these last five hundred years.”
I can tell you what harm he did! Dragosani would not be ignored. Only look at me! I was an innocent child and he taught me the arts of necromancy. Later, as a youth, he beguiled me with his hypnotism and his lies. As a man he put his vampire egg in me, and when it had matured, he—
“Your history concerns me not at all!” Harry stopped him. “Neither that nor any calumny of charges you bring against Thibor or anyone else.”
Calumny? Dragosani was furious.
“Be quiet!” Harry’s patience had broken. “Be quiet now, or I leave you at once, immediately, to wait out all the ages in your loneliness. All three of you.”
There was a sullen silence.
“Very well,” said Harry. “Now, as I was saying, I’m not greatly concerned with Thibor’s crimes or supposed crimes against you, Boris Dragosani. No, but I am concerned to know about what he did to another. I refer to a woman, Georgina Bodescu, who came here with her husband one winter. There was an accident and the man died.He died here, on this very spot. She was pregnant and fainted at the sight of his blood. And afterwards …”
Ah? said Thibor, his interest quickening. But I’ve already told you that story. Are you telling me now that … are you saying it took effect?
Beware, Harry Keogh! Dragosani interrupted. Tell him no more. I heard the tale, too, when the old liar told it to you. If that unborn child as was is now a man, he’ll be in thrall to Thibor! Aye, even though his master’s dead! Can’t you see? This devil would see himself alive again—in the body and mind of this new disciple!
You … dog! Thibor howled. You are Wamphyri! Does that mean nothing to you? We may fight among ourselves, but we do not divulge our secrets to others! You are damned for all time, Dragosani!
Old fool, I’m that already! Dragosani snarled.
“Very well then,” Harry sighed. “I can see I’m wasting precious time. That being the case, I’ll bid you—”
Wait! Thibor’s voice was all burning anguish. You can’t tell me just so much and leave it at that. That’s … inhuman!
“Hah!” Harry snorted.
A trade, then. I shall finish my story, and you shall tell me if the child was born and lives. And … how he lives. Agreed?
Harry guessed he’d said too much already, which in itself might be as good a reason as any for going on. There were now four principal things he must try to discover. One: the full range of a vampire’s powers. Two: how, exactly, Thibor might try to use Yulian Bodescu. For Dragosani seemed to think it was possible for Thibor to resurrect himself, in Bodescu. Three: the rest of Thibor’s story concerning the occurrences a thousand years ago at the castle of Faethor Ferenczy, so that he might know if anything of evil yet remained in that place. And four: how to kill a vampire, but definitely!
As to the last: Harry had thought he knew that much eight months ago, when he’d waged war on the Château Bronnitsy. But looking back now he saw that Dragosani’s death had only come about through a fortunate combination of events. For one thing Dragosani had been blinded: his eyes had been ruined by a reflected mind-bolt when Max Batu’s stolen talent had rebounded on him from one of Harry’s zombies; for of course Harry had had his zombie Tartars, his shock troops, for back-up in that affray. It had been one of them, called up from the preserving peat, who’d hacked Dragosani’s head from his shoulders; and another who’d pinned his parasite vampire to his chest with a wooden stake when it deserted his shattered body. Harry couldn’t have done all of these things, maybe not any of them, on his own. In fact, Harry’s only real ace had been his mastery of the Möbius continuum: when he’d been very nearly cut in half by machinegun fire, he’d fled his dying body and dragged Dragosani’s mind in there with him. In the Möbius continuum he’d hurled Dragosani through a past-time door, which had led the necromancer back to Thibor in his grave. And there an “earlier” Dragosani had lured up and killed Thibor, never dreaming that with the same stroke he had also determined his own fate. As for Harry’s incorporeal mind: he’d gone forward, found his son’s life-thread and joined with it, lay with it in the womb of Brenda waiting to be born. She had been his lover, his wife, and now, in a way, might even be considered his mother. His second mother.
But what if he had left Dragosani’s mind in his corpse back at the Chateau? How long would that broken body have stayed a corpse? That was conjectural …
And Harry wondered: how had the surviving Russian E-Branch members dealt with what remained when all the fighting stopped? What had they made of his zombies? It must have seemed utter madness, an absolute nightmare! Harry supposed that after he left the Chateau along the Möbius way, the Tartars had fallen once more into quiescence …
Perhaps by now Alec Kyle had the answers to these questions, learned from Felix Krakovitch. Harry would find out eventually, but for now there were fresh problems. Foremost among them: how much dare he tell Thibor about Yulian Bodescu? Very little, he supposed. But, on the other hand, by now the extinct vampire had probably guessed all of it for himself. Which made any continued secrecy pointless.
“Very well,”said Harry, finally, “we trade.”
Fool! Dragosani cut in at once. I had given you some credit, Harry Keogh—I thought you were cleverer than that. And yet here you are attempting to bargain with the devil himself! I see now that I was unlucky in our little contest. You are as big a fool as I was!
Harry ignored him. “The rest of your story then, Thibor, and quickly. For I
don’t know how much time I have …”
The first time the old Ferenczy came, I was not ready for him. I was asleep; but exhausted, half-starved, it’s unlikely I could have done anything anyway. The first I knew of his visit was when I heard the heavy oaken door slam, and a bar was dropped into place outside. Four trussed chickens, alive, full-feathered, squawked and fluttered in a basket just inside the door. As I roused myself and went to the door, Ehrig was a pace ahead of me.
I caught him by the shoulder, threw him aside, got to the basket first. “What’s this, Faethor?” I cried. “Chickens? I thought we vampires supped on richer meat!”
“We sup on blood!” he called back, chuckling a little beyond the door. “On coarse meat if and when we must, but the blood is the true life. The fowl are for you, Thibor. Tear out their throats and drink well. Squeeze them dry. Give the carcasses to Ehrig, if it please you, and what’s left goes to your ‘cousin’ under the flags.”
I heard him starting up stone steps, called out: “Faethor, when do I take up my duties? Or perhaps you’ve changed your mind and deem it too dangerous to let me out?”
His footsteps paused. “I’ll let you out when I’m ready,” his muffled voice came back. “And when you are ready …” He chuckled again, but more deeply in his throat this time.
“Ready? I’m ready for better treatment than this!” I told him. “You should have brought me a girl. You can do more with a girl than just eat her!”
For a moment there was silence, then he said, “When you are your own master you may take what you like.” His voice was colder. “But I am not some mother cat to fetch fat mice for her kittens. A girl, a boy, a goat—blood is blood, Thibor. As for lust: you’ll have time for that later, when you understand the real meaning of the word. For now … save your strength.” And then he moved on.
Ehrig had meanwhile taken hold of the basket, was sidling off with it. I gave him a clout which knocked him protesting to the floor. Then I looked at the terrified birds and scowled. But … I was hungry and meat is meat. I had never been a squeamish one, and these birds were plump. And anyway, the vampire in me was taking the edge off all points of mannered custom and nicety and civilized behaviour. As for civilization: what was that to me? A Wallach warrior, I had always been two-thirds barbarian!
I ate, and so did the dog Ehrig. Aye, and later, when next we slept, so did my “cousin” …
The next time I came awake—more strongly, surging awake, refreshed from my meal—I saw the Thing, that mindless being of vampire flesh which hid in the dark earth under the floor. I do not know what I had expected. Faethor had mentioned vines, creepers in the earth. That is what it was like. Partly, anyway.
If you have seen a squashy octopus from the sea, then you have seen something like the creature spawned of the finger which Faethor shed, fattened on the flesh of Arvos the gypsy. The one thing I cannot comment upon was its size; however, if a man’s body were flattened to a doughy mass … it would spread a long way. The matter of Arvos had been reshaped.
Certainly the groping “hands” which the being put up were stretchy things. There were also many of them, and they were not lacking in strength. Its eyes were very strange: they formed and unformed, came and went; they ogled and blinked; but in all truth I cannot say that they saw. Indeed, I had the feeling they were blind. Or perhaps they saw in the way a newborn infant sees, without understanding.
When one of the thing’s hands came up from the soil close to where I lay, I cursed out loud and kicked it away—and how it shot down out of sight then! How well another might fare I could not say, but the vampire thing was certainly wary of me. Perhaps it sensed that I was a higher form—of itself! I remember how at the time, that was a very shuddersome thought …
Faethor had this way with him: he was devious, sly as a fox, slippery as an eel. That was how I considered him, feelings brought on by sheer frustration. Of course he was that way: he was of the Wamphyri! I should not have expected him to be any other way. But quite simply, he would not be ambushed. I spent hours waiting for him behind the oak door, chains in my hands, hardly daring to breathe lest he hear me. But let hell freeze over, he would not come. Ah! But only let me fall asleep … a squealing piglet would wake me, or the fluttering of a tethered pigeon. And so the days, probably weeks, passed …
I will give him his due: after that first time the old devil didn’t let me get too hungry. I think to myself now that the initial period of starvation was to let the vampire in me take hold. It had nothing else to feed on and so must rely on my stored fats, must become more fully a part of me. Similarly, I was obliged to draw on its strength. But as soon as the bond was properly formed, then Faethor could begin to fatten us up again. And I use that phrase advisedly.
Along with the food, there would be the occasional jug of red wine. At first. remembering how the Ferenczy had drugged me, I was careful. I would let Ehrig drink first, then watch for his reaction. But apart from a loosening of his tongue, there was nothing. And so I too drank. Later I would give Ehrig none of the wine but consume it myself. That, too, was exactly the way the old devil had planned it.
Came the time when, after a meal, I was thirsty and quaffed a jug at one swig—then staggered this way and that before collapsing. Poisoned again! Faethor had made a fool of me at every turn. But this time my vampire strength buoyed me up; I held fast to my consciousness, and sprawling there in my fever I wondered: now what is the purpose of this? Hah! Only listen, and I’ll explain Faethor’s purpose.
“A girl, a boy, a goat—blood is blood,” he’d told me that time. “The blood is the life.” Indeed, but what he had not told me was this: that of all pulses of delight, of all founts of immortality, of all nectar-bearing flowers, that one source from which a vampire would most prefer to sip is the throbbing red rush of another vampire’s blood! And so, when I had succumbed more fully to his wine, then Faethor came to me again.
“Two purposes are served here,” he told me, crouching over me. “One: it is long and long since I took from one of my own, and a great thirst is on me. Two: you are a hard one and will not submit to thraldom without a fight. So be it, this should take all of the sting out of you.”
“What … what are you doing?” I croaked the question, tried to will my leaden arms to rise up and fend him off. It was useless; I was weak as a kitten; even my throat found the greatest difficulty simply forming words.
“Doing? Why, I sit me down to my evening meal!” he answered, gleefully. “And such a menu! Blood of a strong man—spiced with the blood of the fledgling vampire within him!”
“You … you’ll drink from … from my throat?” I stared up at him aghast, my vision swimming.
He merely smiled—but a smile hideous as any I ever saw him make—and tore my clothes. Then he put his terrible tapering hands on me and felt my flesh all over, frowning a little as he searched for something. He turned me on my side, touched my spine, pressed it again, harder, and said, “Ah! The very gobbet, the prize itself!”
I would have cringed away from him but could not. Inside I cringed—perhaps that child of his within me cringed, too—but externally my skin merely shivered. I tried to speak, but that also had grown too difficult. My lips only trembled and I made a moaning sound.
“Thibor,” the old devil said, his voice level as if in polite conversation, “you’ve much to learn, my son. About me, about yourself, about the Wamphyri. You are not yet aware, you fail to perceive all the mysteries I have bestowed upon you. But what I am, you shall be. And the powers I possess, they too shall be yours. You have seen and learned a little, now see and experience more!”
He continued to balance me on my side, but propped up my head a little so that I could see his face. His magnetic eyes held me, a fish, speared on their pupils. My blurred sight cleared; the picture sharpened; I saw more clearly than ever before. My body and limbs might well be made of lead, but my mind was sharp as a knife, my awareness so keen that I could almost feel the change taking place i
n the creature who leaned over me. Faethor had somehow, for some reason, heightened my perceptions, increased my sensitivity.
“Now watch,” he hissed. “Observe!”
The skin of Faethor’s face, large-pored and grainy at best, underwent a swift metamorphosis. Watching it I thought: I have never known what he looks like. And even now I won’t know. He is how he wants me to see him!
The pores of his face opened up more yet, pockmarks cratering his flesh. His jaws, enormous already, elongated with a sound like gradually tearing cloth, and his leathery lips rolled back until his mouth was all bulging, crimson gums and jagged, dripping teeth. I had seen Faethor’s teeth before, but never displayed like this. Nor was the metamorphosis complete.
It was all in the jaws, in the teeth, in the nightmarish contours of the face. Faethor already resembled a great bat—or perhaps a wolf, or both—but now it rapidly grew into more than a resemblance. He was not a bat, neither bat nor wolf, but a creature somewhere between; and Faethor the man was only the shell, like the chrysalis covering some monstrous grub. Except that now the chrysalis had cracked wide open.
His teeth were like slender, crooked icebergs grinding together in the red ocean of his raw gums. His mouth bled, flesh erupting as those terrible teeth sprouted, cutting upwards like serrated knives from jawbones that broke through torn flesh to form gaping ridges of glistening gristle like a bony beartrap. Looking into that maw, which dwarfed the rest of his face, I knew he could close it on my face and strip my flesh to the bone. But that wasn’t his purpose.
Yellow eyes burning above the flattened, convoluted ridges of his flaring nostrils, he laughed a gurgling laugh as his upper eye-teeth elongated more yet, like bloody tusks emerging to almost overshoot his great lower jaw. A sabretooth, now Faethor was finally ready. Before he toppled me facedown, I saw that his incredible fangs were hollow at their tips—siphons for my blood!
